Hello out there,

Welcome to the third episode of Talking Offerings! This series offers a deeper look into the weekly story Dark Offerings. I provide my insights as the writer and analyze the story so far.

Dark Offerings is like the Dark Souls of Augmented Reality MMOs. Even the lowest of creatures can still kill you especially if you’re being ganged up on.

If you don’t currently read Dark Offerings feel free to use this link and read it! It’s free.

Chapter 3.

For all my MMORPG geeks out there (One of us.) I want to be clear. The abilities in this game, including the way skills, are trained, is similar to the system in Asherons Call.

For those that don’t understand or haven’t heard of AC (SHAME, SHAME, SHAME!) the way it works is your abilities go up by using them and you also get extra experience that you can choose to use on whatever you want.

I’m a huge fan of that game and have spent endless hours playing it. That being said like I stated in the intro, it’s also a Dark Souls-like.

I am a pantser. That means that I don’t plot stories out. However, in this story, I decided to take my time and plan a little bit. Like I said before in a few of my blogs I tend to take small goals and work my way toward them. It’s the same with this one just a little bit better.

I even did a bit of brainstorming and came up with the idea that the sword would not be normal. In the next few chapters, you’ll see what I mean.

Molly and Inethiel are still on shaky ground relationship-wise. On top of that Inethiel is trying to deal with the fact that she, in the last Chapter, experienced something that shouldn’t be possible.

I introduced an exhaustion mechanic to the game. Undead aren’t all-powerful. They are however a product of magic and are not the bite me and instant pandemic variety.

Shamblers are supposed to be the slow-moving variety of zombies. Players can train the slow-moving part out of the character but they will never be as fast as an elf or normal human who’s spent just as many points in the same stat.

The new character introduced in this one is Victor. Molly and he go way back and he is one of the people in town that enjoys role-playing. I still haven’t figured out what his real-life shop is going to be but I’m sure it’ll all come together later on.

The sword is going to be a very important piece of the story. This is one of the things I’ve thought a lot about so I hope you like it.

I also introduced a very basic magic system in this one. Admittedly, I haven’t spent too much time fleshing the system out. Most video games have a generic system where each character has mana and that mana is expended when a spell is cast.

I’m not sure if that’s the direction I want to go with or not but it’s probably what I’ll use. No guarantees though.

There are also different color varieties that determine spell strength. Golden being the strongest.

While going through this Chapter I found mistakes which is a really good thing. I’ll probably ninja-edit them into the story. I’m also going to try and catch these up with the current chapter and bring them out the day after the Chapter comes out.

While it’s ideal that the TO comes out at the same time as the story I work on release days. Plus it’s adding even more writing to my plate.

I think that’s enough for this one. There’s a lot of information being thrown around today. I look forward to writing the next one and hope you have a wonderful day!

With love,
Katherine.